Jesus isn’t dead, but it looks like his body is dying

It’s been said that children are the future, but what at what point does the future have to finally become the present? This past Sunday night Swift Current held it’s annual ecumenical prayer service, and this year it just happened to be held at our church. It’s supposed to be a time when people from all the different churches and denominations can gather together to pray and build unity within the body of Christ. We had eleven pastors or lay leaders from different churches help in leading the service, and I would guess about one hundred people in attendance. If I left it at that it might sound encouraging, unfortunately for me it was really deflating because I know the true story these numbers reflect.

Eleven pastors or lay leaders from different churches sounds good until you realize we have thirty-one churches here in Swiftyvillerton. Only a third of the churches in our community were represented in a unity building service. One hundred people in attendance sounds good until you do the math and see that means there were only about nine people from each church who’s pastor was there, and I know that a good chunk of those people were from our congregation because it was held in our building. One hundred people in attendance sounds good until you realize that I was easily the youngest person there by twenty-five to thirty years at the age of twenty-eight. We were missing an entire two or three generations of people in a city wide service intended to express and build unity within our churches.

Growing up I often had conversations and heard conversations about how much better the church will be when us young people were in charge and we could run the church the way we want (music, services, boards, ministries, etc.). The seniors were often blamed for holding back progress and wrecking the church for the young people: “the future”. Where is this glorious, burgeoning, generation now that was going to fix everything wrong with the church? Where is this group of young people that are supposed to have a real understanding of living their faith, that believes in prayer, that is open minded and tolerant of other people with different beliefs than their own, that is going to take the world by storm and see the Kingdom of God built in their midst? On their couches at home watching the season premiere of “The L-word” waiting for Obama to be inaugurated so they can finally have a president that represents them and will fix things that “the old generation wrecked”? Enough talk and blame already. It’s about time that “the future” finally grows up and becomes “the present”. Not to oust anyone, but to show they aren’t completely useless to the church or the world they live in. Enough complaining about the only generation that keeps the current church afloat. The church isn’t perfect by any means, but if the young people that think it’s broken or damaged don’t do something to actually be involved and try to fix it their problem will be solved soon enough without them because the church won’t be around to complain about anymore.

Thanks for the links Brian, they were an interesting read. Having read the description of the young evangelicals, you could place me firmly and unashamedly in that camp. Most the descriptions that I believe the author intends to be perjorative I would wear as a badge of honor. I think that’s where my frustration comes from. I am one of the young evangelicals and that mindset should lend itself to dialogue and bridge building within the Christian community, like this ecumenical prayer service was intended to be. If I am a “young evangelical” and see the value in this, and the “young evangelical” mindset is supposed to value this, then where are all these “young evangelicals”?